


Foil, Reform, Creature Fear

by MellytheHun



Series: The Deadlights Zine Series [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Canon Jewish Character, Character Study, F/M, Fear, Friendship, Friendship is Magic, Gen, Jewish Identity, Love, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Meta, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Prophetic Visions, Religious Conflict, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29797758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Stan, forsaken in the Deadlights.
Relationships: Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Series: The Deadlights Zine Series [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862683
Kudos: 10





	Foil, Reform, Creature Fear

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS
> 
> TW: death scenarios, violence, childhood trauma, mentions of blood, implied and explicit suicide/images of self harm, grief, religious guilt, religious inner-conflict, animal death (birds), loss of faith
> 
> If you know Graves of Cravings, you know what's up
> 
> Title inspired by 'Creature Fear,' by Bon Iver

**Stan**

The synagogue was so big in Stan’s memories, and that always made sense, because he’d all but grown up in synagogue, and a temple of any size might seem enormous to a baby. 

As a conversationalist, Stan would often say something to that effect as well, something like ‘oh, I remember how giant my synagogue seemed when I was little,’ and people - the grown-ups - they’d laugh at that, commiserate with him about his old soul, and how they all grow into themselves eventually, no matter how weedy, and small they start off.

The problem is, Stan has never outgrown that feeling.

The synagogue is still so big, and there’s so much empty space, even when it’s packed, and it towers above him, taunting him with a vast nothingness, feeling cavernous, and lacking, and he can barely think it to himself, much less say it aloud to anyone, but the truth of the matter is, that’s what faith has always felt like to him.

Lacking, and cavernous; a wide, beautiful space where something enormous, and divine should fill up the room with its Spirit, but he doesn’t feel it. 

He doesn’t feel like a grown man this week anymore than he did the week before, and he feels nothing in the place he’s meant to feel the most, and he knows how brokenhearted his father would be to hear that.

He can never tell his father, but Stan has this icky feeling that he already knows…

Every morning, Stan gives praise to Shekhinah, in thanks for her returning his soul before the sunrise, and he praises Adonai for creating time and everything in existence. For all good things. And his father is good, isn’t he?

His father is as the Lord; compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

He is calm. He is fair. He is right. He is good.

Right?

Stan sees his father’s frown lines, the wrinkles by his eyes looking like those found in the binding of a well-loved book, and he can hear the chatter of birds outside the handsome walls of the synagogue. 

It is selfish of him, bad of him, but he wants to be out there, in the sunshine, with his friends - the only things he really believes in, the only place he feels he can truly put his faith - and then the birds plummet against the glass, falling from the sky like a dark flurry of bloody hail.

They make small cries, or squawk in terror as they fall, and Stan hurts for them, in his heart. He’s distraught by the sounds of their cries, and by the gore he can see flashing behind his eyelids.

Feeling as though his feet are sinking in sandy, desert plains, he looks around in a panic, needing guidance, or aid, but he can’t find his father anymore - he knows instantly that his father is gone. 

The way Stan feels about telling his father about his lack of faith is the same feeling still sitting in the hall, taking up all that space, but that feeling is his father’s - it’s his father’s fear, of admitting that he doesn’t approve of Stanley. 

That he wanted more for Stanley, and of him. 

That he wanted Stanley to be more, but he sees now, he sees what Stanley is, what Stanley will be - and it will never be enough, not to take pride in. Not to connect with. Not to choose before all other things, or at any cost.

His father’s a nice man, a good man, but Stanley can’t say he knows his father, and quite suddenly, Stanley realizes he never will. 

He’ll never truly know his mother either, or what she thinks of him in the most private parts of her mind, if she’s too scared to say she’s disappointed too. 

As hollow bones break, and break, and break over the temple, the windows turn dripping and dark, Stan closes his eyes, and he doesn’t pray, not in a traditional sense, and it’s not to a G-d, but to Bill.

He thinks of Bill, steadfast, patient, loyal, and true, and Stan wants to emulate him, be more like him, and be a Loser with Bill forever, because it means more - he feels something, something in his Spirit when he thinks about the Losers. 

He feels like he’s always on this precipice of letting them down, of them seeing that, really, he’s too boring to keep around, he’s not funny enough, he’s not smart enough, but then he thinks of Bill, Mike, Eddie, Richie, Beverly, Ben, and he prays in that way that he can’t pray to them, and thinks of them in the place of G-d, and he shuts his eyes against the onslaught of gore piling up on arched, and stain-glassed ceiling.

He hears glass break on the weight of small bodies. The sounds of the birds’ bodies crashing against the Earth are now vibrating near his feet, joints popping out of place, and bones splintering against the hardwood. He can smell blood in the air, and something vile which he knows must be innards that are spilling, and bursting out of them upon impact. 

He shakes, and he prays.

He imagines Bill’s face, his kind smile, his unwavering sense of duty, and he prays for something indiscernible - it’s a feeling, one of grief, and regret, but gladness, and trust. He doesn’t know if he’s praying for the feeling to be bestowed upon him, or if he is praying it be taken from him, but Bill smiles kindly upon him anyway, and vanishes from Stan’s inner eye.

Beverly is there next, and he knows what he praises her for - he prays for her courage and loyalty. He imagines her hands, covered in grime, and blood, he remembers how she speared a beast through the side of its head, how she comes to the aid of any fallen person, with little consideration for her own safety. 

The birds are falling fast now, piling upon each other, so high they reach his knees. The sickening _‘plat,’ ‘plat,’ ‘plat,’_ sound of their carcasses colliding in heaps make his chest constrict with something acrid.

Mike would shield him, Stan knows - he prays to Mike, a strong wall of protection, to keep this evil at bay. Mike has broad shoulders, fierce eyes, and he yields to no one. In the theatre of Stan’s mind, he can imagine Mike somehow surrounding him by all sides, or perhaps embracing him, and tucking Stan safely against his chest until the bloodshed is done.

He prays for Eddie to forgive him for his fear, for his stillness in the face of horror. He imagines Eddie’s split arm, he can remember how Eddie worried that his bone would break through the skin, but he persevered until he was safely received. Eddie combats fear, he evens the score with fear, drawing blood when it takes from his wealth, and Stan has never been so brave.

The piling has reached his waist now, his jeans are sticky with blood, and he doesn’t dare open his eyes.

Frantic now, he prays for Ben’s holy construction of safety, to provide him with a haven away from this terror, and he prays for the tenacity of Richie, the way he hollers like a warrior to fill his Spirit like a gospel choir and bring him surety even in the face of bleak uncertainty.

As the birds pile high enough to pass his chest, he opens his eyes, and though the sky is black, and the birds still consume every available surface, and there is viscera on his head, and blood splashing his face, he can see something beautiful.

It’s a woman.

She’s lovely.

She has soft features, gentle eyes, and a smile that comes from more than just her lips.

He wants to reach out and touch her, but he can't move his hands or arms, and alongside her, in flashes, he sees blood filling up a bathtub, steam rising from arms slit open, and from the reddening water too. He hears laughter, carnival music, and birds singing, screaming.

He feels snakes moving beneath the sand below him, he knows they come for him, and while he doesn’t regret praying to his friends, he knows it was forbidden, just the same as giving idol worship to a golden calf.

_For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and G-dhead; so that they are without excuse:_

_Because that, when they knew G-d, they glorified him not as G-d, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened._

_Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,_

_And changed the glory of the uncorruptible G-d into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things._

She’s got a laugh like wind chimes, and hesitant hands, small, and often tucked under the sleeves of her sweaters. She has six wings, one to carry the excess love of his six other faiths, each. 

He doesn’t want to let them down - anyone. Not anymore. He doesn’t want to be everyone’s greatest disappointment anymore. G-d has left him, perhaps G-d was never with him -

_Be not deceived; G-d is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting._

Hava Nagila is being sung in earnest through broad smiles, people in crowds are dancing the Hora, and that woman is crying happy tears, she’s rosy, and beautiful, and he loves her, he worships her, and he’s so glad -

“Stan?” he hears - but it’s a voice he doesn’t recognize yet.

Maybe it’s the woman’s voice.

“Stan, honey, you’ve been in there for a while, are you -”

There’s screaming, crying, grappling, hollow bones snapping, beaks breaking, glassy eyes glazing over with nothingness. There is the end, a deep sleep with no rest, rotten soil, worms like icicles making holes in his flesh like spoiled fruit.

There are no choirs singing, no father there to greet his Spirit, and he sees her - he sees his wife, he knows it’s his wife, and he loves her, he didn’t want her to know he was a coward, he didn’t want her to know this Nothing he’s always been, that he doesn’t deserve her, that he didn’t deserve Bill, or Richie, or any of the Losers that loved him unconditionally like his G-d never could, or his father couldn't, and then he’s saying her name, it’s on the tip of his tongue, “it’s okay, I’m okay, please don’t be disappointed, please don’t be sad, I wasn’t supposed to get to be happy, I wasn’t supposed to have you, I thought I was forsaken -”

Her lips are so close, he cranes his neck, his shoulders creaking under the weight of all the birds. He is so sorry for having made her cry.

He’s about to say her name, and in saying her holiest of names, he will know peace, and love, and light, and he will know some secret of the Seraphim before him, but then his eyes come into focus, and the Losers are dog piled on him, kissing his head, his cheeks, hugging his waist, his shoulders, his arms, all saying his name, crying, apologizing, trying to wake him from whatever dream he’d had.

He's very confused at first, unable to immediately recall where he is, or even who he is, or why that should matter. His friends are good, and kind, though, they are gentle with him, and their affection warms him all the way to his toes.

The last tendrils of those phantasmagoric scenes slip through his synapses like sand through his fingers, and while he wonders why he feels so heavy, and sad, he can only express that he loves his friends back, and he rejoices in seeing them celebrate his consciousness. 

That can be enough for now, he supposes.


End file.
